Show Cheap Sugar 1 Not For Some Time 1 As fall season the year-long pyrotechnics on the world sugar marts began to show signs of But meanwhile sugar prices had been hauled upward to incredibly high and the retreat still has a long way to go before prices again become tolerable to consumers and industrial It will be an even longer trek to the well-deflated prices in effect before the CONSUMERS NEED not be reminded how high supermarket prices of table sugar went before the The situation is also painfully clear to many small bake shop owners forced to close their especially after having been placed in a precarious position by the surge in wheat prices not too many months There were many causes of the frantic spurt in sugar each responsible for at least a small part of the But the seeds of the rampant speculation in sugar contracts and the scramble for the sweet commodity were sown when election-conscious politicians took dead aim at the U.S. Sugar letting it run out at the end of THE ADVANCING price of sugar failed to deter Congress from voting against extending the Sugar even in amended or permitting the bars to be lowered against the importation of sugar from South So sugar was left vulnerable to weather If the wasteful aspects of the Sugar Act had simply been giving the legislation new its quotas might well have influenced the producing nations to allocate enough sugar for this country to protect their own This could have moderated the scramble for sugar and the accompanying wave of THE costly lessons of the food and feed grains price dislocations only a few months before were The congressional vote was heavily against retaining the Sugar Act in any As sugar prices shot President Ford invoked his Executive authority ana extended restrictions but with worldwide quota and no national IT WAS too of for congressional haggling followed by unfortunate action had already done the In characteristic the protectors of the consumer attacked the industry and related ignoring the workings of free markets-domestic and inter-national-and their own Early in 1974 it was expected that the carryover of sugar from 1973 and the projected output for the upcoming season would be more than adequate to meet world consumption BUT THE picture was drastically changed by the hurricane devastation of Louisiana's sugar cane followed by losses in the top sugar beet areas of eastern the Russian the and It now appears that the only saving grace has been our good sugar beet although even here growers had cut back plantings by 5 not expecting the spectacular surge in sugar WHILE CURTAILMENTS of consumer use and increased industrial reliance on substitutes have pared sugar prices at least an early return of cheap sugar is not Much will depend on next year's sugar cane cuttings and on planting conditions for the sugar beet crop in the northern AND THEN there is the longer wait to determine the size and quality of the latter As for stock market the Research Department of Babson's Reports advises retention of leading sugar Great Western Holly and Utah-Idaho PURCHASE OF Cooke-which has a cane sugar-is at this For a freeH tailed report on write to Reports 3 |